novels to read around christmas Audiobooks

At a party on a rival college campus, I drunkenly stumble into a bathroom just as a tall, muscular man steps out of the shower...naked. Instead of fleeing, I stay put and end up having the hottest bathroom hookup with someone whose name I don’t know. Because I’m still in the closet, I don’t talk about what happened that night, glad that it was with a guy who doesn’t live in the same town. But come Monday morning, the naked man from the bathroom strolls into the locker room and locks eyes with me. Dominic is new to campus and threatening my spot on the team, which makes me hate him. It’s too bad I loved everything he said and did to me the night we met, but I can’t let him get to me with his cocky smirks and filthy words. I have to focus on keeping my position and making sure nobody finds out about us. He’s arrogant where I’m modest. I’m docile where he’s domineering. We’re complete opposites, so it could never work, but being with him makes me want to break free from the chains that have kept me in the closet, because he’s also the firm hand to my wavering confidence and I’m the moth drawn to his flame.

Cast aside by her first mate, Sara was left feeling unloved and unwanted. However, fate had other plans in store for her, as she encountered a second chance at love that very same day, and to her surprise, it turned out to be her former mate's uncle. As the past mate grapples with regret and yearns for a second chance, Sara finds herself at a crossroads, torn between her old love and a new beginning. Will she become the Luna to the wolfless Alpha, despite all the lies and deceit? Will she get rid of her hateful cousin Megan, when there is more to her than meets the eye?

Books saved my life after losing my parents as a teenager. Now as a librarian, sharing books with teens to get them through hard times is a privilege and joy. So imagine my surprise when I meet Prescott, a man who values the same things as me. He runs the teen outreach center and is giving his life to make the world a better a place. It’s like we’re a match made in heaven. After a whirlwind night where love is at the tip of both our tongues, I learn that maybe we aren’t the same after all… I wanted him to check me out on a long-term loan, but maybe it’s too good to be true. Maybe we better shelve this romance before both our hearts get broken. His Curvy Librarian is a new filthy-sweet series brought to you by Frankie Love and Kaylin Evans. It’s full of heat, heart, and literary innuendo. What’s sexier than a man who loves to read? How about a naked man who loves to read?

Lady Alice Chivers is done being controlled by her family. On the run from an arranged marriage, she needs a strong Highlander to escape. Only Philip MacGregor insists on sending her back to her pampered life, so she’ll just have to blackmail him instead. But now they find themselves in an accidental marriage, and soon they’re both playing a role that feels like it was meant to be real. Philip is cautious, in control, and in way over his head with his unexpected wife. She’s intense, spontaneous, and can’t follow an order to save her life. And he might be falling completely in love with her. However, her distractions endanger the lives of those he loves. Now he must somehow undo the damage that has been done, before his friends pay with their lives. Each book in the MacGregor Lairds series is STANDALONE: * How to Lose a Highlander * How to Ensnare a Highlander * How to Blackmail a Highlander * How to Forgive a Highlander

Blindsided by a breakup, and asking herself the usual why, how, what questions, Tatiana Jerome went online. She used social media as a way to uplift and empower herself by venting but also working through her own part in the relationship’s demise. Her posts struck a chord with thousands and then hundreds of thousands of readers — no surprise since most (approximately 85 percent) relationships end. Jerome’s action plan — “crowd-tested” by her many online followers — walks readers through a clear-eyed view of why the break-up happened, what NOT to do on the rebound, and how to start over. Starting over involves rebuilding one’s self-esteem by caring for oneself in body, mind and spirit. Jerome’s posts spread online because she shares these ideas with a winning combination of sympathetic best friend, straight-shooting counselor, and inspiring cheerleader. This is for anyone who has loved, lost, and wants to love again — only better and smarter.

Make Your Gifted Life Meaningful Overcome your unique challenges. The challenges smart and creative people encounter―from scientific researchers and genius award winners to bestselling novelists, Broadway actors, high-powered attorneys, and academics―often include anxiety, overthinking, mania, sadness, and despair. In Why Smart People Hurt , natural psychology specialist and creativity coach Dr. Eric Maisel draws on his many years of work with the best and the brightest to pinpoint these often devastating challenges and offer solutions based on the groundbreaking principles and practices of natural psychology. Find meaningful success. Do you understand what meaning is, what it isn’t, and how to create it? Do you know how to organize your day around meaning investments and meaning opportunities? Are you still searching for meaning after all these years? Many smart people struggle with reaching for or maintaining success because, after all of the work they put into attaining it, it still seems meaningless. In Why Smart people Hurt , Dr. Maisel will teach you how to stop searching for meaning and create it for yourself. Learn from a truly thought-provoking personal growth book. In Why Smart People Hurt , you will find: Evidence that you are not alone in your struggles with living in a world that wasn't built for you or your intelligence Logic- and creativity-based strategies to cope with having a brain that goes into overdrive at the drop of a hat Questions that will help you create your own personal roadmap to a calm and meaningful life Readers of true, natural self-help books for gifted people struggling with life, anxiety, and depression, like Living With Intensity , Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults , and Your Rainforest Mind , will learn how to create meaning in their lives with Why Smart People Hurt by Dr. Eric Maisel.

When Lady Elizabet Harding’s family is targeted by the notorious Highland Highwayman, she finds herself wounded and an unwelcome guest of the charming outlaw who’d ruined her reputation earlier that day. Elizabet only wants to get even for her family’s downfall, but the more time she spends with the scoundrel, the more complicated her feelings become. By day, Laird John MacGregor graces the court of Charles II. By night, he exacts revenge on his enemies – one of whom is betrothed to the fiery heiress who has, quite literally, fallen into his arms. The daughter of one enemy and promised to another, Elizabet should be the last person John wants. Yet even as she exasperates him, she is all he has ever desired for himself. When her life is put in danger, he will do anything necessary to protect the women he never expected to love…even if it means they cannot be together. Each book in the MacGregor Lairds series is STANDALONE: * How to Lose a Highlander * How to Ensnare a Highlander * How to Blackmail a Highlander * How to Forgive a Highlander

First featured on a British poster produced during World War II, "Keep calm and carry on" has become the mantra of millions — but exactly how to keep calm remains a difficult question for most of us. The next time you are stressed by pressures of work, overwhelmed by life's challenges, or panicked by problems that seem unsolvable, reach for this book. In LITTLE WAYS TO KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, you'll find twenty short yet powerful lessons and anxiety-reducing techniques that will help you move past stressful moments with grace. Each lesson is so simple to learn and practice, you'll find that this pocket guide is all you really need whenever you need a little help keeping calm.

In this international bestseller by the award-winning novelist Mariana Leky, a heartwarming story unfolds about a small town, a grandmother whose dreams foretell a coming death, and the young woman forever changed by these losses and her loving, endearingly oddball community On a beautiful spring day, a small village in Western Germany wakes up to an omen: Selma has dreamed of an okapi. Someone is about to die. Luisa, Selma’s ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Protesting that they are not superstitious, each of the villagers grapples with the buried secrets and deferred decisions that have suddenly become urgent in the face of death. Luisa’s mother struggles to decide whether to end her marriage. An old family friend, known only as the optician, tries to find the courage to tell Selma he loves her. Only Sad Marlies remains unchanged, still moping around her house and cooking terrible food. But when death finally comes, the circumstances are outside anyone’s expectations. Across three defining moments in her life, Luisa grapples with life's big questions alongside her devoted friends, young and old. A story about the absurdity of life and death, a bittersweet portrait of village life and the wider world that beckons beyond, it is also a thoughtful meditation on the way loss and love shape not just a person, but a community. Mariana Leky's What You Can See from Here is a charmer―a moving novel of grief, first love, reluctant love, late love, and finding one's place in the world, even if that place is right where you started.

He’s got all the right moves to fulfill her every fantasy . In Sundance, Wyoming, you can’t throw a boot without hitting a McKay cowboy, so Ben McKay is used to fading into the background. Except at The Rawhide Club, where he’s known as Bennett, an imposing Dom surrounded by female subs eager for the attention of his long…whip. At her first visit to The Rawhide Club, businesswoman Ainsley Hamilton is amazed by how well Bennett read her every secret yearning. Since the club was in another small town, she thought she was safe exploring her darker desires. She's stunned when she and Bennett come face to face in Sundance. Now Ben’s urging her to explore her submissive side outside the club, and there’s something in his commanding gaze that makes it too easy to let him take the reins. Can Ben help Ainsley overcome her fear that a relationship built on physical pleasure won’t last and prove he’s not just another heartbreaker in a cowboy hat?